A Rare Execution
Elizabeth Taylor became only the third woman to be hanged on the New Drop gallows outside Newgate. The other two were Frances Warren and Mary Moody.
Elizabeth and her brother Martin were convicted of burgling the house and shop of Samuel Hooker at Highgate in London on the night of Sunday, the 7th of May, 1785. They got quite a haul—nearly £200 worth of goods comprising sixty yards of Irish linen cloth, ten linen handkerchiefs, two hundred and fifty yards of thread lace, two thousand yards of silk ribbon, thirty yards of muslin, two silk handkerchiefs, and some silver spoons and tableware. Elizabeth had been a servant in the Hooker household and had left his employment about sixteen months earlier.
The Crime
On the night of the 7th, Mr. Hooker locked up as usual before going to bed and was satisfied that everything was secure. Sometime after midnight, Elizabeth, Martin, and possibly a second man arrived at the house where they carefully removed four courses of brickwork from under the kitchen window without disturbing the sleeping occupants. Martin was able to get through this hole and then went into the shop, taking the items he found and passing them out to Elizabeth.
Discovery and Arrests
The crime was discovered the following morning when Mr. Hooker came down and was surprised by the amount of light in his kitchen from the sun shining through the hole that had been made. He checked around and went into the shop, where he noticed various items missing. In a state of agitation, he went next door and fetched his neighbour to look at the situation. He then fetched the local constable, Mr. Thomas Seasons, and reported the burglary and the considerable loss of stock to him.
On the 18th of May, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Seasons went to Martin Taylor’s home and searched it. They discovered a cap that had some lace on it and a few yards of ribbon, which Mr. Hooker was able to identify, but none of the other property. Martin was arrested at the house.
Mr. Hooker and Mr. Seasons then went to the home of a friend of the Taylors, Mrs. Halloway, a part-time dressmaker with whom Martin had lodged. She claimed in court that Martin had asked her to make two shifts for his sister from the material he had brought to her. Mrs. Halloway knew Elizabeth from her visits to the house.
Here, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Seasons discovered pieces of the Irish linen cut up into panels for shirts and shifts. They also discovered one of the handkerchiefs that had been stolen. Further searching of the house revealed some more of the items in the upstairs room of another lodger, Mrs. Powell.
Mr. Hooker and the constable’s next visit was to Bow Fair, where they apprehended Elizabeth, who tried to make a run for it with the help of some of the bystanders. When she was searched, a small quantity of ribbon was found in her pocketbook. She was taken back to Mr. Seasons’ house and then before a magistrate, where she made a confession. She told Mr. Seasons that she and two men had committed the burglary.
The Trial
Elizabeth and Martin were committed for trial by the magistrates and appeared at the June Sessions of the Old Bailey, which opened on Wednesday, the 29th of that month before Mr. Justice Buller. Mr. Silvester led the prosecution, and the defence was handled by Mr. Garrow.
Various witnesses were called, including Mr. Hooker, Mr. Seasons, Mrs. Halloway, and Mrs. Powell, each giving their account of the events and being cross-examined for the defence. Mr. Garrow questioned the constable about the circumstances under which Elizabeth had made her confession and whether or not she had been placed under duress to extract it. He suggested that the constable had threatened her with being hanged if she did not confess—something Mr. Seasons denied—telling the court that he tried to dissuade her from making a confession and that she continued because she thought, in his opinion, that it might save her from the gallows.
Martin Taylor was allowed to make a personal statement in his defence in which he told the court that he had bought fourteen yards of the linen for twenty-two pence a yard from an acquaintance in the Borough, intending to have it made up by Mrs. Halloway into clothes for his wife and sister.
Elizabeth simply told the court that she knew nothing about the crime at all—not a statement likely to impress the jury in view of the evidence against her.
Both Elizabeth and Martin were convicted and sent back to Newgate to await sentencing at the end of the Sessions. No less than twenty-two men and three women were condemned to hang on that Friday. However, fifteen men and the other two women were reprieved and had their sentences commuted to transportation.
The Execution
The execution of the eight remaining prisoners was to take place on the portable “New Drop” gallows outside the Debtor’s Door of Newgate on Wednesday, the 17th of August, 1785. They were among a group of eight prisoners to die that morning. With them on the platform were James Lockhart, convicted of stealing in a dwelling house; John Rebouit, John Morris, and James Guthrie, convicted of highway robbery; and Richard Jacobs and Thomas Bailey, also condemned for burglary.
At around 7:30 a.m., the condemned were led from their cells into the Press Yard, where the Under Sheriff and John Villette, the Ordinary (Newgate’s chaplain), met them. Their leg irons were removed by the prison blacksmith, and the Yeoman of the Halter supervised the proceedings as the hangman and his assistant bound their wrists in front of them with cord and also placed a cord around their body and arms at the elbows. White nightcaps were placed on their heads.
The prisoners were then led across the yard to the Lodge and out through the Debtor’s Door, where they climbed the steps up to the portable wooden gallows. There were shouts of “hats off” in the crowd—not out of respect for those about to die, but because the people further back demanded those at the front remove their hats so as not to obscure their view of the execution.
Once assembled on the drop, the hangman—probably Edward Dennis—put the nooses around their necks while they prayed with the Ordinary. Elizabeth might have had her dress bound around her legs for the sake of decency, but the men’s legs were left free.
When the prayers had finished at about 8:15, the Under Sheriff gave the signal, and the hangman moved the lever, which was connected to a drawbar under the trap, causing it to fall with a loud crash. The prisoners plunged 12–18 inches and usually writhed and struggled for some seconds before relaxing and becoming still. If their bodies continued to struggle, the hangman, unseen by the crowd within the box below the drop, would grasp their legs and swing on them, adding his weight to theirs and thus ending their sufferings sooner.
The dangling bodies would be left hanging for an hour before being either returned to their relatives. It was not recorded whether Elizabeth struggled or died easily.
A Grim but “Improved” Death
Although still by no means an instant death, being hanged outside Newgate and being given some drop was a considerable improvement over executions at Tyburn, with the long and uncomfortable ride to the gallows where prisoners died a much slower death as they got virtually no drop.
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